Holey bracket pictures?

Anybody have any detail pictures of racecar lightened brackets? I remember Sam had some cool looking brackets. I building my generator bracket and want some ideas to swiss cheese it. Should I use abunch of small holes, a few big ones or a combination there of? It's basicly a 6"x5" plate.


The classic old black bracket shown here.

 

Here's the frame side panhard bar mount on my 31.
Kinda hard to see, but maybe it will help.

I'd say you need to have your lightening holes about a half diameter away from the edge.
The half diameter derived from the hole size you decide to use.

The really important part to making lightening holes - IMHO anyway - is to hit them with a countersink.
It adds a lot more than you think as far as good looks go.

Set the drill press up so all holes are countersunk to the same depth.
Use a 'real' countersink as well. Drills can do it, but a lot of times they chatter and make a strange looking shoulder on the lightening hole.
Countersinks have a designed in factor that stops chatter.
At least most of them do.

You may want to make up a paper pattern and use a template or compass to draw the hole pattern before you get to drilling.

Keep in mind too that you don't want to set up a potential 'break' line with the drilled holes.
Usually fewer holes than you think is necessary is the safe way out.

 

Here's another pic.
This one of nephews extended swing arm hill-climber we built.

Could have been more holes, but all I was looking at here was visually breaking up the long solid run of the brake torque arm.

 

I use a black marker and draw the holes in different layouts until it looks good.

 

Simon that is exactly what I did. I never got any cool design ideas so I just did it the "KISS" way. I turned the hole saw upside down and used a sharpie. I ended up moving them to this location.

 

Looks just fine to me

 

Tommy,
Great minds think in the same gutter. I used a sharpie pen and eye-ball engineering until I got my brackets to look right.

---used this for inspiration...

 

Part of what I was looking for was the question...lots of little holes or fewer big holes? The big holes let the old Cal Custom V.C.s show through but still has the old time bracket feel. I can get anal over a stupid gen. bracket.

 

Tommy, most lightening holes (that I've seen) parallel the brackets' edges- bigger holes at the widest part of the bracket and sequentially decresing sizes where the bracket gets narrower.

Then drill smaller holes where there's still plenty of solid material left over.